She wanted to go now but understood the risk involved. It was just like on a passenger jet, when the flight attendants gave their instructions regarding the oxygen masks.
You first, and then your loved ones.
It was a concept some didn’t understand. Raegan did. She may not like it, but she got it.
You’re no good to anyone if you’re dead.
Her hands trembled from the adrenaline, pain, and fear as she fought to open the kit’s zippered pouch. Thankfully, her training took over, and she somehow found the strength to push it all aside and focus on the task at hand.
Stop the bleeding. Get to your people.
It became her mantra as she worked the zipper with one hand while simultaneously keeping her Sig Sauer at the ready with the other.
Applying the tourniquet would’ve been a hell of a lot easier with two hands. Of course, it also didn’t help that her focus wasbeing pulled between treating her wound and keeping the tangos who wanted her dead at bay.
As if appearing out of thin air, a man came running toward Raegan from her left. He was shouting something in Arabic, and when he spotted her, the barrel of his automatic rifle swung in her direction.
Like before, Raegan didn’t hesitate to eliminate the threat. She simply pointed her pistol and pulled the trigger.
Double tap, single.
And just like the asshole before him, her would-be killer dropped to the dirt a dead man.
Later, she’d allow herself a minute to process the fact that she’d just killed four human beings. But not now. Not while she was still at risk of bleeding out while a group of terrorist assholes tried to destroy them all.
Come on. Come on. Come on!
After what felt like forever, she finally got the lifesaving device in place. Sweat from both the hellish weather and fiery pain poured down her temples, nose, and back.
Nausea swished and swirled deep in her gut, and the temptation to rest was great. But her need to get to her friends outweighed it all.
Aaaand…I’d kinda like to live to see twenty-six.
Using her free hand to keep her balance, Raegan pushed herself up to her one good foot. She put her right foot down, using a tentative step to test out the use of that leg.
A breath hissed through her teeth, and she drew her foot back up with a gasp. Her non-gun-wielding fist clenched tightly around the edge of whatever part of the mangled truck she was holding, and then…with two slow, steeling breaths…Raegan tried putting weight on that leg again.
And again.
And again.
Don’t give up, Rae. They need you! Never. Give. Up!
More determined than ever, she ignored the breath-stealing inferno engulfing her right thigh and took that first real step. Over and over, as she kept her eyes open for the first sign of threats, Raegan made her way closer to where her friends should have been.
Halfway there, her leg buckled, and she went down to her good knee. Small rocks dug into her fatigue-covered skin as she pushed herself back to her feet.
Have to find cover. Can’t be out in the open.
She scanned what was left of this side of the building. Part of the left corner and roof was still intact, but a massive pile of rubble filled the gaping hole.
You can’t get in from here. You’ll have to go around.
Disappointment nearly crushed her, but quitting wasn’t in Raegan’s DNA. With her eyes peeled and her pistol ready to fire, she moved as quickly as she could toward the nearest corner of the crumbling building.
She was almost there when she heard a man’s voice. A familiar voice. And one she instinctively knew meant trouble.
“Drop the weapon…Lieutenant.”